The Stone

I thought to leave a stone behind,
to mark the stream of joy I’ve known,
the tears I saw, the wrong, the love—
all etched upon its rugged bone.
 
Would such a gift be just, or vain?
I wonder if a life’s divide
can be accepted, closed with words,
yet commas urge me on to write.
 
At midnight, by my mother’s feet,
the hibiscus folds its scarlet wings;
the water lifts, the air grows thin,
and age takes breath from living things.
 
No one has kept their secret thoughts,
and still I sketch tomorrow’s face—
yet what is future? Will it come?
Or yesterday’s a truer place?
 
A shadow calls me to the ghat,
a beggar’s form, her hands extend;
“Leave me a grain, an endless gift,
your burden carried to the end.”
 
But is it simple—leave a stone?
Who bears its weight through all the years?
What man would take another’s grief,
and guard it close with silent tears?
 
At night, no sleep will visit me,
my mind half-closed, my eyes still wide.
Who scattered grain along the street?
Who left, who lingers still behind?
 
These words I carve in hidden walls,
so hard to find, so hard to read.
When death is filed by the state,
will provident funds fulfill the need?
 
I thought to leave a stone with wealth,
my savings turned to monument—
but then the boatman calls me forth,
to twilight’s shore, to discontent.
 
There she stands, a shadow deep,
her chest conceals unspoken breath:
“Take all with you, leave nothing here,
what’s left behind belongs to death.”
 
I’ll never know what vision stirred
within her breast, what dream was drawn—
but from this shore I see the next,
her silhouette across the dawn.
 
And so resolved, I bind my will:
this stone shall travel in her breast,
hidden from the world entire,
a secret never to confess.
 
I thought to leave a stone behind—
but now the thought makes me deride;
existence taxed, the state has claimed—
why leave the heart in such a land?